1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a chord information output apparatus that detects chords and outputs them as chord information to an external device, and to an automatic accompaniment apparatus that performs automatic accompaniment in accordance with chord information, etc. received from external sources.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many compact automatic accompaniment apparatuses that do not have keyboards have been developed and are in use today. These automatic accompaniment apparatuses provide automatic accompaniment based on chord information that is input by means other than keyboards.
Inputting chord information to such automatic accompaniment apparatuses is conventionally performed using keypads or other small terminal assemblies.
Players who are accustomed to using keyboards, however, feel uncomfortable using keypads, and cannot enter chord information with them smoothly.
Further, to reduce the sizes of keyboardless automatic apparatuses, very small terminals are used for chord information entry. These small terminals make use of the apparatuses inconvenient, and chord information input clumsy.
Recently, electronic musical instruments that have keyboards and that incorporate automatic accompaniment apparatuses have been developed. Such electronic musical instruments are so designed that one part of a keyboard (e.g., the lower half, the LOWER keyboard) can be used to enter chord information, and the other part (e.g., the upper half, the UPPER keyboard) can be used to enter, or play, a melody. These electronic musical instruments produce musical tones using chord information entered via their LOWER keyboards and accompany melodies entered, or played, on their UPPER keyboards.
Since a player can use the keyboard of such an electronic musical instrument to input chord information, ease of operation is increased. At the same time, however, the use of part of the keyboard for chord information input reduces proportionately the key range available for entering, or playing, a melody.